New Years Eve with Guy Lombardo!

Guy Lombardo - "New Year's Eve with Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians" (1973) - MCA Records

Hello Friends,

Holy crapola!  Can you believe its New Year's Eve already?

Seems like just yesterday we got rid of our 2016 New Year's hangover!

Well tonight we're counting down to midnight with the immortal Guy Lombardo, Mr. New Year's Eve himself.

This, undoubtedly, is one of our favorite drinking records of all time!  The record player is cranked and the high balls be flowing!

This record has it all!  Of course, there's Auld Lang Syne.  But there's also fun, upbeat versions of classic dance hall hits: "The Music Goes Round & Round", "Bye Bye Blues", "Beer Barrel Polka", "When You're Smiling", "Bill Bailey" and the super-creepy, "I Want A Girl (Just Like The Girl Who Married Dear Old Dad)"!  YECH!

But the last track is one of the greatest, end-of-the night drinking ballads, "Show Me The Way To Go Home".  It's the ultimate You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here exit music:

Show Me The Way To Go Home

I'm tired and I want to go to bed

I had a little drink about an hour ago

And it's gone right to my head

Wherever I may roam

On land or sea or foam

You can always hear me singing this song

Show Me The Way To Go

Show Me The Way To Go

Show Me The Way To Go Home....

HAPPY NEW YEARS FRIENDS!  

RATING: 4 Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot out of 5

Loretta Lynn - "Don't Come Home A-Drinkin'" (1967)

Happy Friday Friends!

Nurse your hangovers with this great tune by the inimitable Miss Loretta Lynn, the original Coal Miner's Daughter.  (With a special appearance by Bill Monroe on rhythm guitar!)

Bring on the weekend!

Best of BREAD

Bread - "The Best of Bread" (1973) - Elektra Records

Hello Friends,

This is the perfect record to listen to when its after last call and you find yourself at some strange dude's house and he begins uncomfortably massaging your shoulders.

You fixate on the music and the lava lamp and just pray to yourself that this whole night has just been a bad dream.

But as his fumbling paws work their way lower down your back, you cringe as you realize that this isn't a dream but another one of those bad life decisions fueled by poorly mixed drinks and a lifetime of low self-esteem.

How do you get yourself into these situations?  Why did you accept his invitation for a "night cap" at his "crib"?   Where's your car?  Why does this dude have a box of Chinese massage balls on his coffee table?  Yecccch!

You close your eyes and hope for the record to end so you can tell him to "flip it", excuse yourself to the bathroom, run the water and give your self a "pep talk" in the mirror.

You're better than this.

You deserve better than this.

If you make your break now, you might still be able to catch a ride home with that nice little Mexican guy that washes the dishes back at the bar!

RATING: 3 Baby I'm A Want Yous out of 5

Night Winds (100th Post, Bitches!)

Jackie Gleason - "Night Winds" (1956) - Capitol Records

Hello friends,

Is there anything better than a chilly November evening, a tall bottle of red French wine and Jackie Gleason on the turntable?  Well, we don't think so! 

Using an ensemble of 23 flutes (count 'em) to replace the Bobby Hackett's ghostly cornet solos, Night Winds is some more of the same lush and soothing mood music that Gleason made famous in the mid 1950's.  The songs flow into one another seamlessly-- each side of the record is like a dreamy soundscape. 

Fat, sweaty, chain-smoking and mostly drunk, its truly amazing what Jackie Gleason would accomplish in 1955-1956.  Not only was his recording career hugely successful but, "The Jackie Gleason Show" was a top- rated variety show on television and "The Honeymooners" were at their creative height!  (The last episode of the "classic 39" would air on September 26, 1956.)  I guess they don't make them like they used to!  The Great One, indeed!     

RATING: 4 packs of cigarettes a day out of 5  

Bee Thousand: The Director's Cut

Ashes on the turntable, books knocked over, beer spilled in Rorschach patterns on the rug, and crudely drawn UFOs scrawled on cocktail napkins.

Yup, we must’ve listened to a Guided by Voices record last night.

Bee Thousand, the 1994 release by the prolific Kings of lo-fi Guided by Voices, is no small feat. In fact, it’s a rough masterpiece drawing sounds from the British invasion, psych, prog rock and punk. The album is working something out as it goes and you can hear the evolution of songs actually occurring. While a lot of the material may be off-putting (the recording is so piss poor on some of these tracks, it’s like somebody threw cassette tapes in a swimming pool and a lot of the lyrics are about spacecraft and warlocks), the sheer brilliance of lead singer Bob Pollard rears itself in unimaginable ways. The true shame of it all is that so much of his beautiful stuff gets lost in the fray.

I can’t sell you on this band. It’s too tall of an order. Getting into this band means drowning in an endless abyss of record releases. You end up lost in a laboratory full of Pollard’s test tubes and beakers of frothing weirdo genius. And nobody really wants to hear about this band at cocktail parties, believe me.

But while Bee Thousand may be a hurtle for some, it is salvation for others. It really is some kind of indescribable magic.

Tiki’s Track Picks: "Smothered in Hugs", "Tractor Rape Chain", "The Goldheart Mountain Top Queen Directory."

XO! -Tiki T

Setting the Bar...

Hello Friends!

Tiki Tuscadero chiming in here with a few tips on home bar decor.

While the central focus of "Vinyl in the Valley" is the record at hand, your living room lounge should be nothing to sneeze at. The most industrious scrapper can make a living room bar out of some stuff from Goodwill and Job Lots...so strap on your "Can Do" Pants, bucko!

Should Ned and I ever have the opportunity to get this record show on cable access, I feel you would better understand what we're trying to achieve with the red light bulbs and stolen Chinese restaurant napkins. But for now, I suppose I can only try to best use the written word...

1. I like colored light bulbs in the lamps at the bar. We favor red ones, actually. What better color to set a sultry tone for tiki records? Or a spacey tone for prog rock records? Or a glowing backdrop for your triumphant fist pumps and leg kicks at 2 am?
2. Frame your cooler album covers for the walls around the bar. Why didn't you think of that, dummy?
3. As mentioned before, lots of Chinese restaurants have kitschy paper napkins that are yours for the taking. Set up little piles of cheerfully designed ones for your delighted guests (or no guests, as is often the case for us!)

See you next week. Until then, happy vinyl!

XO,

Tiki T.

This shit's better than Nyquil

This is like audio Ambien.    Seriously, if you're having trouble sleeping put this on.  Its so lush and smoldering that it will probably put you to sleep before you even have to flip it to side B.  

The Jackie Gleason LPs on Capitol are all pretty stellar examples of lounge music from the late 1950's and early 60's.  The funny thing is that Jackie Gleason was best known for his portrayal of the brash, Ralph Kramden, on television's "The Honeymooners"-- his albums, however, are quite the opposite of that fat, sweaty, manic, spousal-abusey loudmouth. 

Also, he's on my top 10 list of favorite drunks.